Give Me An Ocean
by theboywiththebread
Summary: In the zombie apocalypse, there is no such thing as a happy ending. Yao learns the hard way that there is more for him to lose than his own life. RoChu. AU. Oneshot.


**I planned the beginning and the end of a lengthy zombie AU about two years ago, but I couldn't work out what to do in the middle and the idea kind of stagnated. I don't think I'll ever end up writing that fic, so rather than let the idea go to waste, I decided to take what would have been the ending and turn it into a standalone oneshot.**

**I don't _think_ that this story is violent enough to warrant an M rating, but I could be wrong. Of course, if you clicked on a zombie story, then you're probably not particularly squeamish, so it's not like it matters.**

* * *

There was a time when Yao thought he would never see the sea again. He hadn't given it much thought – there were hundreds of things that he'd thought he would never see or do again, and the sea wasn't that important, not compared to his family and his friends and the ability to walk out his front door without risking becoming food for a ravenous horde of the undead.

They are flying above the Pacific Ocean, far enough above the water that the waves look tiny, like ripples in bath water. Yao isn't sure how big they really are, but he guesses that they are taller than buildings. He thought that he would be happy if they ever got here. He hadn't expected that the crazy, impossible pipe dream of finding a plane and flying across the ocean to safety would ever come true, not for one minute. As sure as he was that it would never happen, Yao had allowed himself to imagine how he would feel if it did, the way that people used to fantasise about what they would do if they won a million-dollar lottery.

Against all odds, it had actually happened. Yao had begun to let himself feel hope when the group of survivors that he and Ivan had joined came across the plane, empty of fuel but in perfect working condition. Amongst their number was Alfred, a young American who had been in the Air Force before the disaster struck, and with both a plane and a trained pilot, they had nearly everything they needed to escape to somewhere safe.

All they needed was fuel, and getting some wasn't even that difficult – while necessities like food, clean water, weapons and ammunition were in high demand and thus hard to come by, but aviation fuel was a different story. While petrol for cars was damn near impossible to come across these days, most people had neither a plane nor the ability to pilot one, so they were able to find more than enough without too much effort.

That could have been their last supply run. They could have ignored the gnawing hunger in their guts and just _gone_. But the flight was going to be a long one, and Yao was ashamed to admit that he had been more enthusiastic than anyone else about finding some food before they left. They split up and, as usual, it was Ivan who accompanied Yao as he searched the nearby houses for something edible – anything that could be classed as 'food', no matter how stale or unpleasant, was worth filling an aching, empty stomach.

The cupboards in the first house they searched had been cleaned out long ago – the only thing left was a tin of cat food, which Yao stowed in his bag anyway, just in case they found nothing else. He had once been a very picky eater, the kind of snob who could eat at the best Chinese restaurant in town and then declare that the food had been subpar and that he could cook a better meal with his eyes closed. Now he was willing to eat anything, even if it tasted so foul that he would cough and gag while trying to swallow, even if he could barely keep it down, even if it wasn't meant for human consumption.

"I know you like Hello Kitty, but you probably shouldn't eat her food," Ivan had said.

Knowing that he was going to escape the horror that his world had become made Yao feel generous enough to laugh at the lame joke.

The house next door was even emptier than the first, but the third house proved to be a treasure trove. Not only were the cupboards full of food, but much of it was canned goods that would still taste good after sitting on the shelves for who knows how long.

"Whoever lived here was very well prepared," Ivan had remarked, "I wonder what happened to them."

"It can't have been anything good. What kind of person would abandon their house and not take all of this food with them? Best case scenario, they got stranded somewhere else and decided that trying to get back here wasn't worth it," Yao had said.

There was no need to say what the worst case scenario was; they both already knew.

"I'm going to check upstairs. If this person was so prepared, they may have other things we need," Ivan had said.

"Alright. I'll try and fit all of this food in my bag."

Yao hadn't known it then, but that short conversation would be the last happy moment that he spent with Ivan. He was busy digging around in his bag for the cat food – it was taking up precious space, and they didn't need it now that they had peaches and tinned spaghetti and all sorts of good, tasty _human_ food – when he heard a shout from above, followed by a loud thump. The cans clattered to the floor as Yao dropped everything and bounded towards the staircase. He had just reached the second floor landing when he heard a gunshot from one of the rooms, and he rushed in a second later to find Ivan standing there, a smoking gun in his hand and a dead zombie at his feet.

"Thank god you're–"

He had been about to say _okay_, but the word died in his mouth as he realised that Ivan was not okay. It wasn't a bloody patch on the shoulder of his coat that was growing larger by the second that told him, but the look on Ivan's face. It was a look of pure hopelessness that he had seen before, on the faces of the others that he had known who had been bitten.

"I'm so sorry," Ivan had said, bringing the gun up to his head, "I wish it didn't have to end like this, but I'm glad to have spent these last months with y–"

Yao had lunged forward and smacked the weapon out of Ivan's hand. Before Ivan could reach down and grab it, he'd kicked it across the room and out of either of their reaches.

"Yao, what are you–"

"We need to get you out of these clothes so I can inspect the wound," Yao had said, pulling Ivan's scarf off and beginning to unbutton his coat.

"Why? What good will it do? You need to–"

"I need to see if it can be amputated. It looks like a shoulder wound, but it's hard to tell under these thick clothes of yours. It could just be your upper arm, and if we cut it off really quickly, like we did with Matthew's foot, you'll be–"

"YAO!" Ivan had roared.

Yao had jumped back, startled. He'd seen Ivan's loud, violent anger before, but it had never been directed at him.

"I felt that thing bite me, and it got my shoulder. Even if I was wrong – which I'm not – and it was my upper arm, you don't have any medical experience and I don't have time to get to someone who does. You can either give me my gun back or shoot me yourself, but you have to do one of those things _fast_, because I'm not going to leave this house alive, but you still have a chance."

"Just let me look at your wound," Yao said.

Ivan had obliged, allowing Yao to quickly undress him. Any hope of being able to save Ivan by amputating his arm had faded away as Yao was confronted with the deep, bloody wound on the Russian's shoulder.

"Oh," was all Yao had been able to say.

"Yao, please," Ivan had said, "just give me the gun. You don't have to watch me do it. If you make a run for it, you'll be too far away to hear the gunshot by the time I pull the trigger. You won't have to see me die, or see me turn into one of _them_."

"I don't want to leave you," Yao had said, his voice unsteady, "I don't want you to be alone at the end. That would be too cruel. I… I'll stay with you until you… until you pass out."

He had seen it happen before, so he knew how much time Ivan had – though a person could survive anywhere between thirty seconds and several hours after becoming infected, depending on where they had been bitten, it always took roughly five minutes for them to reanimate after passing out. That would give Yao more than enough time to check that Ivan was really dead and put a bullet in his brain before he woke as a zombie.

"I think I'd like that," Ivan had said, "just don't take any risks. Don't let me hurt you. Dying is bad enough without having to worry that you'll kill someone you care about afterwards."

"I'll be careful."

With trembling hands, Ivan had pulled Yao closer to him.

"I want you to know how very dear you are to me, Yao. How much I want you to live a long and happy life, even if I'm not by your side. How much… how much I love you."

The words had brought tears to Yao's eyes. Those words should have made him feel good, but knowing that Ivan didn't get the chance to say them until it was almost too late had only made the tragedy that had befallen them worse. He had begun to cry, barely able to choke out a strangled cry of _I love you too_ between sobs.

"I should have said it sooner," Ivan had said, gently stroking Yao's hair, "I'm sorry. Don't cry, everything will be okay. You'll get out of here, you'll escape to somewhere that isn't infested. Maybe you'll go to China, and you'll see your family. They'll be safe. You'll be safe. I won't be there with you, but it will be okay."

Yao sniffed.

"I can't believe that you're comforting me right now. You're the one that's dying, it should be the other way around."

"You're the one who has to live on after I'm gone. Nothing you say could change what happens to me, but what I say now could help you. It could stop you from taking any stupid risks, from throwing your life away when I'm gone."

Ivan had looked into Yao's eyes, a very serious look on his face.

"Don't you dare do anything like that," he had said.

His last words.

Right afterwards, Ivan had grown weak and slumped to his knees. Yao had crouched down beside him, barely able to see through his tears.

"I love you so much, Ivan," he had sobbed.

Ivan had smiled – a smile that was still on his face when Yao felt his heart stop.

Yao had felt sick as he stood up and walked across the room to where Ivan's gun had landed after he kicked it. It had felt heavy in his hands as he had picked it up and aimed it at Ivan's head.

Before the dead had begun to rise, Yao had never touched a gun in his life, but over the past few months he had become a skilled gunman. It was Ivan who had taught him to shoot; Ivan, who had looked so peaceful lying there on the ground, almost as if he was just sleeping.

Yao had pulled the trigger, and with a gaping hole in his head, Ivan hadn't looked very peaceful any longer.

Yao had barely made it out of the room before dropping to the floor and vomiting all over the top of the staircase – that he had enough food left in his system for vomiting to be physically possible came as a surprise.

When he got back to the rest of the group, the others had asked about Ivan's whereabouts, but Yao's tearstained face and bloodshot eyes had told them before he could say it.

Yao had considered asking if they could go back to the house, all of them, and give Ivan a proper burial, but he had decided against it. Going for an extra trip that wasn't absolutely essential was what had got Ivan killed, and Yao didn't want to risk any more lives.

The others didn't know Ivan as well as Yao did, so they aren't as affected by his loss. Perhaps on a normal day they would all be sombre and serious, but the excitement of escaping outweighs the loss of a man who was somewhere between an acquaintance and a friend.

As he sits by the window and watches the ocean below, Yao can hear Alfred excitedly yelling the names of the places they could go. Their current destination is Honolulu, but there is a long list of other places to go if Hawaii turns out to be infested. Yao hears him say _American Samoa_ and _Fiji_ and _New Zealand_ before Arthur makes a joke about how surprising it is for him to know geography so well.

Francis and Matthew laugh.

Yao doesn't.

He hears _head west_, followed by _Taiwan_ and _China_ and then his own name.

"But we all speak English, and only one of us knows Chinese," Arthur says, "if staying in Hawaii isn't an option, then we should go to Australia or New Zealand or somewhere."

Usually, this is where Yao would speak up. He would extol the virtues of Chinese food and Chinese people and the Chinese way of doing things, and tell everyone that they absolutely _must_ go to China, but he doesn't. He doesn't say a word. It makes no difference to him where they go – China and Australia are both countries where Ivan does not exist, so it doesn't matter that one is his home country and the other is somewhere that he has never been in his life.

Maybe later, when he doesn't feel so numb, he will begin to feel excited about the possibility of returning to his homeland and seeing his extended family, but right now, he can't even close his eyes without seeing Ivan's face, or what was left of it after Yao had finished him off.

He worries that he will never get that image out of his head.

He worries that he will carry it with him for the rest of his life.

What if he can't bear it? What if he does something reckless – risks or even ends his own life – so that he won't have to see it anymore?

He promised Ivan that he wouldn't and he doesn't want to break that promise, but he knows he won't be able to stand feeling like this forever.


End file.
